Disrupt or Defend

Softup Technologies GmbH

In the age of AI, founders face a constant choice: disrupt the market—or defend what they’ve built. Disrupt or Defend is a weekly podcast for startup founders, CTOs, and tech builders who want to stay ahead without losing focus on people and purpose. Host Daniel Kazani, co-founder of Softup Technologies, talks with founders and experts who are shaping the next wave of software innovation. From AI agents and low-code tools to scaling dev teams and building products that last, each episode explores the decisions that define a company’s future. If you’re building in tech and want real stories, practical lessons, and honest conversations about the balance between boldness and focus—this show is for you. Subscribe and join the community of builders defining what comes next in tech.

  1. 23 hr ago

    How AI is disrupting the practice of Law | Ep. 35

    Most law firms bill by the hour. Bennett B. Borden built one that almost never does. ㅤ He tells Daniel Kazani, co-founder of Softup, that conservatively 80% of what a lawyer does today is better done by AI. The 20% left over is very high stakes. So he took his team out of DLA Piper and started Clarion, a firm that practices AI law and builds agentic systems for clients at the same time. ㅤ Bennett calls gen AI the most transformative technology since electricity, and he has a reason for the comparison: every prior revolution was additive to knowledge workers, and this one competes with them. His framing for clients is Iron Man, not the Terminator. You don't unplug a person and plug in a bot. ㅤ The conversation gets into the layer most companies skip, which is the sensors and metrics that prove a system behaves precisely as intended. Daniel pushes on whether a vendor can credibly govern its own AI, where liability actually sits when something goes wrong, and why data sovereignty turned urgent in the space of a few months. Bennett's split on adoption: 20% technical problem, 80% psychological. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Bennett B. Borden is a lawyer and data scientist, and founder and CEO of Clarion AI Partners. His career started at the CIA in a new data analytics division in the early '90s, work he describes as understanding, predicting, and influencing behavior from digital data. He went on to Georgetown Law and a graduate degree in analytics from NYU Stern, then spent years in big law focused on automated decision-making systems: the algorithms behind credit approvals, hiring, social feeds, and ads. He was Partner and Chief Data Scientist at DLA Piper, where he led the global AI practice, and founded Clarion in 2024. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why gen AI is the first technological revolution that competes with knowledge workers instead of adding to themThe 80/20 split in legal work, and why the remaining 20% carries all the riskHow Clarion runs as an AI boutique law firm, an AI strategy practice, and a build shop at onceWhy the billable hour makes efficiency your enemy, and how Clarion prices by value, phase, or task insteadWalmart's outside counsel guidelines: use AI on this list of work, or we aren't paying for itWhether a vendor can govern its own AI, and the case for a third party you can pass liability toWhere liability sits under EU and US law today, on the deployer rather than the developer, with contracts carrying the restOpen weight models behind the firewall, and who's asking for them: defense, family offices, funds, pharma, material scienceThe "artifacts of acumen" idea, and how to find the repetitive, data-centric tasks worth building an agent around ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned Clarion AI PartnersDLA PiperHarveyGleanArtisanOpenEvidence, Legora, LovableAnthropic, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft AzureEU AI ActAm Law 200

  2. 23 Jul

    The Fastest Data Grid for your App? | Ep. 34

    Users don't blame your table when it stutters. They blame their WiFi, refresh the page, and wonder if their laptop is dying. Then they open a product where the rows glide, and yours suddenly feels broken. ㅤ Daniel Kazani sits down with Khalil Baydoun, co-founder of 1771 Technologies and the team behind LyteNyte Grid, to get into why speed is a product decision, not a nice-to-have. Khalil breaks down the buy-versus-build math for data grids, why the pull to adopt a tool has to come from developers rather than the CEO, and how a small London team runs like a 30-person company by putting AI everywhere except the hardest engineering. ㅤ They also get into the pressure founders and CTOs now pile onto dev teams: be McDonald's, but make the food gourmet. And why Khalil sits on the dreamer side of the AI debate. For a founder-to-founder view from Daniel and Softup on where developer productivity actually comes from, this one delivers. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Khalil Baydoun is the co-founder of 1771 Technologies, the London software company behind LyteNyte Grid, a data grid and data table library that developers embed into their applications. His team has built data grids for almost three years, focusing on performance and developer experience over sales and marketing. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover The buy-versus-build decision for data grids, and why building one can cost engineers months or a full year of time.Why the customer is the company but the user is the developer, and what that means for how adoption actually happens.Latency as the silent killer of user experience, explained through slow conference calls and laggy FIFA matches.The McDonald's-but-gourmet expectation now landing on every dev team, and how Lovable changes what a product manager expects from developers.Doomers versus dreamers on AI, and why Khalil bets on workflows that haven't been invented yet.How a small team uses AI for documentation, copywriting, invoicing, testing, and code reviews, but still can't get a data grid past 80% from scratch.The "Dyson of data grids" pitch: pick it up, plug it in, get going. ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned LyteNyte Grid / 1771 TechnologiesClaude CodeLovableCursorMicrosoft CopilotPalantirChatGPT

  3. 9 Jul

    The Berlin Startup Ecosystem | Ep. 33

    Berlin's startup scene has changed. When funding was cheap, an idea and a pitch deck were enough. Now, early-stage founders are walking into banks — not VCs — because capital has gotten expensive and the runway has to come from somewhere. The conversation that follows gets into what that shift looks like from the inside, and what it means for the kind of companies being built in Berlin right now. ㅤ Daniel Kazani sits down with Visar Ferizi, startup advisor at Berliner Sparkasse, to talk about how one of Berlin's oldest institutions is showing up for its newest founders. Visar has spent the last three years working directly with early-stage companies — helping them navigate financing, connecting them to the city's network, and watching the Berlin ecosystem shift from consumer apps toward deep tech, automation, and defense. The conversation is grounded, honest, and full of the kind of perspective you only get from someone who sees hundreds of pitches and has to make real decisions. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Visar Ferizi is a startup advisor (Firmenkundenbetreuer für StartUps) at Berliner Sparkasse, Berlin's largest bank and a fixture of the city's financial life since 1818. He has been with the bank since 2017 and has spent the last three years working exclusively with early-stage founders — advising on financing, connecting startups to investors, KfW, IBB, and the broader Berlin ecosystem, and being a consistent presence across the city's startup events and university competitions. He's worked with over 80 startups and is part of a three-person team dedicated entirely to the city's founder community. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why a 200-year-old savings bank runs a dedicated startup team, and what founders actually get from working with Berliner Sparkasse beyond a free first-year accountHow the funding environment has shifted over the last three years — from easy VC money to founders approaching banks at the MVP stageWhat Visar sees changing in the types of companies being built in Berlin: fewer delivery apps, more deep tech, automation, and defenseWhether AI is still just a tool or whether it's become the product itself — and why Visar thinks the distinction matters for how you buildThe single most common piece of advice Visar gives first-time founders, and why AI's speed advantage makes it more urgent, not lessWho to get feedback from first: customers vs. investors vs. outsiders, and how to think about the differenceWhat a bank actually needs to see before it will finance a startup (business plan, financial model, cash flow, USP) — and why showing up unprepared is the fastest way to get a noThe a2zebra / TukToro story: how a founder who started working at 16 built a math-learning dice toy backed by the founders of tonies, and why that story stuck with Visar ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned Berliner Sparkasse — Berlin's largest bank; startup advisory team led by Visar FeriziVisar Ferizi on LinkedIn — connect directly or search his name to reach the startup teamIBB — Investitionsbank Berlin — Berlin's state development bank; a key financing partner for early-stage companiesKfW — Germany's federal development bank; startup and SME loan programsBerlin Partner — Berlin's economic and technology development agencyBusiness Angels Club Berlin-Brandenburg — Berlin's leading angel investor networka2zebra / TukToro — Berlin-based EdTech startup; math-learning dice toy for children aged 4+ backed by the founders of toniestonies — German children's audio brand (Toniebox); founders Patric Faßbender and Marcus Stahl invested in a2zebraEDURINO — Munich-based children's learning startup; physical figurines + app (comparable in the kids' phygital-learning space)Softup Technologies GmbH

  4. 25 Jun

    SaaS for SMBs in the Age of AI | Ep. 31

    Everyone says small businesses will start building their own software. Tim Metzner has a sharper read: most owners are too busy surviving to ever maintain their own tools. ㅤ Host Daniel Kazani, co-founder of Softup, sits down with Tim to work through what makes a software company defensible when technology stops being a moat. They get into why he chose to step out of the day-to-day at the insurance company he co-founded, what he looks for in early-stage founders, and why he tells people to build a scalpel before a Swiss Army knife. ㅤ The conversation runs through founder replacement, AI hype, why a 150-year-old business still runs on Excel, and what to do about AI slop on LinkedIn. Throughout, Tim keeps returning to one idea: fall in love with the problem, not the solution. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Tim Metzner is a Cincinnati-based serial entrepreneur and the founder of Fireroad Ventures, an early-stage fund focused on small and mid-sized business tech. He co-founded the technology studio Differential and the faith-based accelerator Ocean, which launched around 70 companies. In 2018 he co-founded Coterie Insurance, a small business insurance company that has raised over $200 million, and held a senior leadership role there before stepping out of the day-to-day. He also writes a daily newsletter, Daily Mo. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why Tim chose to tap out of his CRO seat instead of being forced out, and how he started treating his own company the way an investor would.What makes a founding team fundable once AI turns "build a great product" into table stakes: a go-to-market motion that's hard to copy, plus real domain expertise.Why "fall in love with the problem, not the solution" is the filter he uses on founders.How a two-person fund uses AI internally to screen hundreds of deals a month, trained on their own deal memos.Why small business owners won't build and maintain their own CRMs, even with vibe-coding tools, because they're in a knife fight every single day.The "build a scalpel first, not a Swiss Army knife" approach to getting embedded in a critical workflow.Why trade shows and picking up the phone still beat AI-generated cold outreach when you're selling to SMBs.The case for less but better content, and treating every post as someone's first impression of you. ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned Fireroad VenturesDaily Mo newsletterTim Metzner on LinkedInCoterie InsuranceDifferentialOcean AcceleratorManusClaude CodeClaude CoworkOpenAI / ChatGPTLovableGitHubY CombinatorCalendlyNotionPipedriveThe Last Dance

  5. 11 Jun

    How AI is automating Commercial Real Estate deals | Ep. 30

    Real estate moves slowly. AI moves fast. Daniel Kazani sits down with Frederik Raspé, founder and CEO of Acquirepad, to figure out what happens when you point fast technology at a slow, trust-heavy industry. ㅤ Acquirepad takes the manual admin out of commercial real estate investing. Frederik explains how AI reads the messy documents real estate runs on, rent rolls, lease agreements, investment memos, and structures them so a team can get to a decision faster. ㅤ The two get into where automation stops and human judgment starts, why 30% of the work can run on its own while 70% still needs a person, and how an industry that punishes mistakes learns to trust a machine. Frederik also makes the case for buying versus building, and what breaks when companies try to run their own AI tools internally. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Frederik Raspé is co-founder and CEO of Acquirepad. He studied real estate and spent his early career inside the brokerage world, working as a broker at one of the world's largest firms (Cushman & Wakefield) and then in a digital strategy and innovation role at CBRE, the largest commercial real estate services firm in the world. That mix of property and technology led him to build Acquirepad, an AI platform for real estate asset managers and investment companies. He's based in Germany. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why Frederik went after commercial real estate, an industry known for moving slowly, and how years inside CBRE shaped that bet ㅤHow AI reads and structures the unstructured documents real estate runs on: rent rolls, lease agreements, investment memos, offering memorandums ㅤThe split between automation and oversight: 30% of processes fully automated, 70% with a human in the loop, and why the deeper you go in a deal the more critical that human gets ㅤHow Acquirepad earns trust in an industry that's sensitive to mistakes, through free trial periods and 99.9% accuracy on core processes ㅤBuy versus build: why 80% of software cost sits in maintenance, not the initial build, plus the story of a client whose self-built tool broke when one employee left ㅤWhy an LLM on its own isn't a database, and where a vertical product beats a raw chat tool ㅤThe time savings Frederik sees on the workflows he covers: up to 80 to 85%, like turning a half-day rent-roll job into ten minutes ㅤWhere Frederik thinks AI will and won't change real estate, why the decision itself stays slow, and his read on the AGI hype ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned Acquirepad ㅤFrederik Raspé on LinkedIn ㅤAI models discussed: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Mistral, Qwen ㅤAutomation and developer tools: n8n, Make, Claude Code, Codex ㅤCompanies referenced: CBRE, Vonovia, BlackRock, Blackstone, Personio, Slack

  6. 28 May

    How AI is impacting M&A activity in Saas | Ep. 29

    What separates a SaaS business worth a real exit from one that buyers quietly walk away from in 2026? ㅤ Daniel Kazani, co-founder of Softup, sits down with Dirk Sahlmer, partner at FE International, to talk about how AI is reshaping SaaS M&A. After six years on the buy side at saas.group, Dirk now advises founders through sell-side exit processes, and he's seen both ends of how exit value gets won or lost. ㅤ The conversation goes long on retention as the new growth signal, why a lot of AI-hype revenue has rotting cohorts under it, and the valuation misconceptions most founders carry into their first exit conversation. Dirk also breaks down what real AI defensibility looks like, why a fifteen-year-old "boring" SaaS can still command a strong multiple, and the one question every founder needs to be ready to answer before a buyer asks it. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bioㅤ Dirk Sahlmer is a partner at FE International, where he advises SaaS and tech founders on competitive auction exit processes. ㅤ Based in Germany, Dirk trained as an engineer before co-founding his own SaaS company, then spent close to six years building the deal origination function at saas.group as their first full-time hire, evaluating thousands of SaaS businesses and leading multiple buy-side acquisitions. In late 2025, he moved to the sell-side at FE International. He also writes the saas.wtf newsletter on SaaS metrics, valuations, and exit readiness, followed by thousands of founders and investors. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why retention has become the metric buyers watch most closely in the current AI hype cycleThe biggest mistakes first-time exit founders make: no sparring partner, no clean numbers, no realistic sense of what the business is worthHow private equity and financial buyers really think about boring SaaS that survives the next ten to fifteen yearsWhat separates a real AI business from a chatbot bolted onto a websiteWhere AI defensibility actually lives: unique data, deep workflow integration, vertical focusWhy a fifteen-year-old SaaS can outperform a hype-stage AI-native startup in an exitWhy simple products like Calendly probably don't get replaced by your afternoon hackThe question every founder should answer before a buyer asks it: how is AI both an opportunity and a threat to your business? ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentionedㅤ FE InternationalCalendlyPersonioSlackAsanaHubSpotMonday.comAWSMicrosoft Azuren8nClaude CodeChatGPTDirk's email: dirk.sahlmer@feinternational.com

  7. 21 May

    How AI is disrupting the restaurant experience | Ep. 28

    Spotify and Netflix both know what you like. The one place that exists for your literal taste, the restaurant, hands every guest the same printed card. ㅤ Daniel Kazani sits down with Amir Khoshbakht, co-founder and CTO of Lokalia, to talk through what happens when AI moves out of the dashboard and into the dinner table. ㅤ Amir's team is rebuilding the restaurant menu as a personalized surface. Items sort themselves to each guest based on prior orders and cross-venue preferences. An in-menu AI assistant answers questions in any language. A new agent on the manager side predicts which ingredients to push or pull back this week. ㅤ Early data from Lokalia's customers: 15 to 20% more engagement with menu items, and bigger checks per guest. The conversation also covers why most restaurant owners almost hate AI on first pitch, and where AI actually earns its keep when it leaves the dashboard. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Amir Khoshbakht is co-founder and CTO of Lokalia. He spent over a decade in software engineering, with prior full-stack and blockchain work at Soar Robotics and a co-founder role at Aikido. He started Lokalia after deciding AI should move out of dashboards and into the parts of daily life people physically experience, beginning with restaurants and cafes. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover Why every restaurant menu is the last static surface in your customer experienceHow Lokalia's AI Waiter inside the menu changes the order flowThe 15 to 20% lift in engagement when the menu sorts itself around each guestCross-venue preference matching: liking the chocolate cake at restaurant A changes what restaurant B shows you firstWhat the data shows about why low-selling items actually sell low (rarely about quality)"The Expert," Lokalia's new agent that predicts ingredient demand for the kitchenWhy most restaurant owners almost hate AI when you walk in pitching itWhere Amir sees hospitality landing: an operating system with fewer tools, not more ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned LokaliaAmir Khoshbakht on LinkedInSpotifyNetflix

  8. 14 May

    How Fractional CTOs use AI to help Startups | Ep. 26

    The hype says AI is coming for your engineers. John McKinney, a fractional CTO who has run engineering at AOL and a string of CTO seats since, says it is closer to "super Google." ㅤ Daniel Kazani, co-founder of Softup, sits down with John to talk about what has actually changed in how software gets built. The conversation lands on the shifts that matter most for founders and engineering leaders right now: product-minded founders shipping working prototypes with Lovable before an engineer joins, the dev role looking more like a mechanic and less like an architect, and the cost of trusting Claude Code with HIPAA-bound systems. ㅤ John is a 20-year engineer and longtime skeptic of every new wave that hits the industry. He is also a working bassist in two New York metal bands, which says something about the kind of CTO he is. They get into vibe-coded MVPs, why QA engineering might be the role most reshaped by AI right now, the broken state of remote technical hiring, and the difference between sprinting to a real horizon and selling a horizon you can't deliver. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio John McKinney is the founder of Merge Conflict, a fractional CTO and technology-strategy consultancy he started in 2017 in New York City. He came up as a web developer in the Ruby on Rails era, co-founded the agency Ashe Avenue in 2007, and stayed on as VP of Engineering for AOL Core Products after AOL acquired the company. Since then he has held CTO seats at Netcapital, LaterPay, Heyday, and Food52. Off-keyboard he plays bass in the New York metal bands Woe and Glorious Depravity. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover How Claude Code went from novel to "a staple of every engineer's toolbox," and why John doesn't believe it turns one-x developers into ten-x.The shift in product roles: product leads now ship working proof-of-concepts before an engineer touches the code, and what that means for PRDs.A real client story of going from a multi-million-dollar agency build to shipping the same retail and clinician software with Lovable.The new shape of the dev job: bulletproofing, production hardening, and compliance checking after the founder ships.Why a HIPAA leak is still your fault, not Claude's, and how exposed API keys on the front end happen.The poisoned hiring funnel: AI voice modulators in phone screens, 400 unqualified applications in the first hour, and Voight-Kampff-style interviewing for replicants.What CS 101 might look like when "Hello, World" gets replaced by prompt-writing, and whether junior-to-mid acceleration actually speeds up.John's read on the "software engineering is solved" claim, the Klarna walk-back, and why the snake-oil crowd from Web3 is the same crowd selling AI now. ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned Merge Conflict - John's fractional CTO practice Claude Code (Anthropic) Lovable ChatGPT (OpenAI) Grok (xAI) VS Code Selenium Stripe Ruby on Rails Klarna (the AI-layoffs walk-back John references) Artisan (the "replace your human workforce" billboard campaign) Icon (the AI ad-maker Daniel tested) Sam Altman, Ray Kurzweil, the Voight-Kampff test from Blade Runner

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In the age of AI, founders face a constant choice: disrupt the market—or defend what they’ve built. Disrupt or Defend is a weekly podcast for startup founders, CTOs, and tech builders who want to stay ahead without losing focus on people and purpose. Host Daniel Kazani, co-founder of Softup Technologies, talks with founders and experts who are shaping the next wave of software innovation. From AI agents and low-code tools to scaling dev teams and building products that last, each episode explores the decisions that define a company’s future. If you’re building in tech and want real stories, practical lessons, and honest conversations about the balance between boldness and focus—this show is for you. Subscribe and join the community of builders defining what comes next in tech.

Information

  • Creator
    Softup Technologies GmbH
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    33
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Softup Technologies GmbH
  • Show Website
    Disrupt or Defend
  • Provider